With the advent of the personal computer, an entire industry of mass marketed software has developed. Most such software is provided on magnetic media such as flexible disks, or diskettes, generally referred to as floppy disks or floppies. Floppy disks come in a variety of types, including eight inch format (now nearly obsolete), 51/4 inch format, and 31/2" format. In each of these formats, the round disk is maintained in a substantially square jacket. Although the jacket is somewhat larger than the disk, the width of the jacket of the disk will be referred to herein as the width of the disk.
Regardless of the format, the software industry requires systems able to quickly, easily and reliably replicate the software of interest from a master disk to at least one target disk. High reliability is of particular importance because jams or other failures lead to the need for human intervention, thereby significantly, and unacceptably, increasing the cost of operation.
Various types of machines for accomplishing this result have existed in the past, including the Trace (formerly Formaster Magnetic Designs) Stargate and Intelligent Autoloaders IL3 and IL5, the Mountain 3235, 3250 and 3280 autoloaders as well as the Mountain Desktop Diskcopiers in 3.5" and 5.25" format, the Action Copy Box, models 350 and 525, the Ashby models 312, 512, 322 and 325, the IXI Standalone Duplicators, the Ventuno 3 and 5 autoloaders, the MST Replica, models P300, 500 and 800, the Replimate Copier series, and the Victory V 3000 and V 7000 series autoloaders.
Each of these machines was basically designed to hold one or more bulk diskettes in an inlet hopper of some sort, to move one bulk diskette at a time out of the hopper into a duplicating drive (when the disk becomes the target disk), to duplicate the software from the master disk to the target disk, to eject the target disk, and to repeat the process with the next bulk disk. If the duplication is successful, the target disk is typically placed in an accept bin, and if the duplication was unsuccessful, the target disk is typically placed in a reject bin. Bins of various types have typically been provided for the output locations. The master disk or other master copy of the software is typically resident on a personal computer or other similar controller which is external to but controls the operation of the disk drive in the autoloader. An internal controller typically controls the motors within the autoloader.
To a greater or lesser extent, each of these machines has limitations concerning the number of bulk disks which could be held in the hopper awaiting duplication, the speed at which the target disk could be moved reliably through the feed and exit paths, and the ability to remove disks from the output bins without stopping operation of the autoloader. The number of disks which could be reliably held in the inlet hopper has been a significant problem. In most prior art designs, the input hopper has simply been a vertical bin, with the bulk disks stacked one atop the next. This creates excessive forces on the bottom disk in the hopper, which is typically the next disk to be processed. The excessive forces on the bottom disk can result in the disk becoming misaligned, or in having two disks fed into the path, or in not having any disk fed into the path. Each of these failures can result in a jam requiring human intervention.
The speed at which disks could be processed through the feed and exit paths has also presented problems. The number of disks which can be processed in a given time is directly related to the speed at which the disk can be fed through these paths, so increased speeds are obviously desirable. However, in the prior art increased speeds frequently have resulted in jams.
Finally, removal of processed disks has in the past presented some difficulties. In mass duplication operations, it is preferable to be able to remove the processed disks (whether successfully duplicated or rejected) from the autoloader without stopping processing. In a number of the prior art autoloaders, this has not been possible, and removal of the disks has required shutting down the loader, removing one or more bins, emptying them, replacing the bins, and restarting the system. Again, the labor involved has resulted in increased costs.
There has therefore been a need for a fast, reliable autoloader capable of duplicating software on a large quantity of flexible disks without stopping.